Yesterday, my friend dropped a lit cigarette while he was smoking in the backseat. I didn’t put much though into it at that time. But, later, I realized, that it could have easily started a fire, by igniting the car carpets.

Anyways, I couldn’t find the cigarette butt, It probably went beneath, the passenger seat, I couldn’t reach there. The Cigarette was half smoked, do you know how long will the cigarette take to die out completely, if it is not being smoked? This happened, yesterday, so is it safe to assume, that the cigarette is no longer burning?

+1 to Steve’s comment. Any cause for concern should be long gone by now.

However, I have a suggestion for the OP regarding how to prevent a repeat of this situation.
Everyone who rides in my car knows that I do not allow smoking in my car. If somebody’s addiction to nicotine is so severe that they can’t go without a ciggie for an hour or so, then they have a really big problem, and I am not going to enable that problem.

So, whether it is the friend who recently dropped the butt in your car, or it is somebody else, simply making it known to your passengers that you don’t allow smoking in your car will prevent you from being in this type of situation again.

You should have seen my father-in-law the first time I ever drove him in my car some 30+ years ago…He started to light up…and I told him…no smoking in my car…he was furious…Gee…too damn bad…it’s MY car…and I HATE the cig smoke smell. Gives me a headache. You want to ruin your life by smoking…FINE…but don’t ruin mine.

I totally agree that there’s no longer any danger, but if you want to get the butt out of there the rear seat bottom in most cars is easily removable. You don’t say what you have for a car, but ask your dealer’s parts guy how and I’m sure he’ll be happy to describe it to you, and maybe even print up a drawing of procedure that will help.

Cigarettes now self-extinguish, I was told, to lessen the chance of wildfires and house fires.
It is believed that some of the deadly fires in Southern California were caused by slob smokers littering their butts out vehicle windows.

I will be putting a stop to this. From now on, my car is a smoke-free zone. I have nothing against smokers, I have a lot of smoker friends and some of them are really nice people, but, I hate it when they have to smoke in the car. And, when I drop them off, I have to roll down the windows, on the way to home, to get the smell out, exposing me to all sorts of crap from outside. It’s disgusting.

Another thing I have got to ask, i read a similar incident on this forum, where a guy’s friend, drops a cigarette in the back seat, he found it, and it was lying on top of the fuel pipe.

What I want to ask is, just out of curiosity, isn’t the fuel pipe located underneath the metal frame? Or, is it accessible from beneath the passenger seat? I own a 2008, Toyota Yaris (Vitz).

I don’t allow smoking in my car either. The problem comes when the smoker bombs an entire cigarette 30 seconds before getting in. Yeah, fine, you’re technically not smoking in my car, but you smell like an ashtray and you’re still exhaling smoke when you get in. Not cool.